Letters to the editor: Laptop switch will cost more than it saves

I was disappointed to learn of the state’s (may I say, Gov. LePage’s) decision to select a laptop running Windows 8, the HP ProBook 4440 (“Maine picks laptops — but not Apples,” April 28).

It is not so much that the Windows or the Mac OS is better or worse (though Windows 8 has not yet been adopted widely in the business world).

Additional Photos

Students Jessy Brewer, left, and Kiara Neal work on their laptops at King Middle School in Portland in 2012. Apple’s exclusive contract to provide laptops to Maine middle school students is coming to an end. Readers are skeptical about the move to HP and Windows 8. 2012 File Photo/Gregory Rec

And it is not that the evaluation committee apparently favored a different laptop.

Rather, it is the short-sighted decision to change horses in midstream.

Years have been invested in teacher professional development on the Mac platform, and now teachers will have to learn an entirely new (and not simple) OS.

I have worked in teacher professional development for a national nonprofit educational institution for 20 years, and I know it is not a trivial thing to change platforms like this.

I find it hard to believe that the Department of Education did not lobby hard in favor of sticking with the Mac platform.

The statements being made that students need to encounter the kind of operating system being used in the business world are misleading. By the time these students get to their first job using a computer, it will have an entirely different operating system.

Whatever “savings” being hoped for from a cheaper machine ($33 per laptop) will be eaten up many times over by the adjustments necessary in schools.

Many school systems that can afford to stick with their Macs will simply pay the extra money and do so.

All it really means is that the state will not reimburse them as much as if the Apple MacBook Air had been chosen.

“Penny-wise and pound-foolish” is the best way to describe the state’s decision.

Once again, Maine teachers and students have not been well served.

Harold McWilliams

Gorham

Few recent operating systems have inspired more contempt from users than Windows 8.

It is an illogical choice as the Maine Learning Technology Initiative platform.

“Epic fail,” according to Forbes magazine, as recently as March 14.

The decision to purchase laptops not currently supported by school IT infrastructure and personnel could potentially cost more than the savings realized by awarding the contract to the less-expensive HP machines.

These extra costs will be passed to the districts by the state.

The state will have saved a penny on the HP machines while forcing the districts to spend a pound on infrastructure and support changes.

Eric Hager

Portland

Reader urges Mainers to support Clean Elections

This has been a huge couple of weeks for the movement to address the problem of money in politics.

I am extremely proud of our elected representatives, who have emerged in a rare demonstration of multipartisanship to reject the notion that money equals speech in our election system. And I am proud of us as voters, because despite reduced participation in the Clean Election program and record-shattering sums of money spent on privately funded races, we overwhelmingly elected Clean Election candidates in 2012.

This week, we have a chance to strengthen our own model Clean Election program and increase transparency in our legislative and gubernatorial elections with two bills in front of the Joint Standing Committee of Veterans and Legal Affairs.

One, introduced by a Republican, will replace the matching funds feature of the Clean Election program. The other, introduced by a Democrat, will address gaps in funding disclosures in Maine elections.

In a particularly rancorous and partisan atmosphere consumed by negativity emanating from the Blaine House, Maine lawmakers have stepped up in the name of positive change.

I, for one, am excited for the opportunity to encourage our elected officials to work with, rather than against, each other to restore the most democratic principle of a government by and for the people, not wealthy special interests.

Lucas Desmond

Portland

Sen. King’s vote for U.N. arms treaty disappointing

In response to your recent supportive, expansive coverage of U.S. Sen. Angus King, I would like to add that our independent senator recently added his name to 44 Democratic senators and one other independent to allow our constitutional rights to be given over to the United Nations.

Fortunately, 53 of our nation’s senators voted against the United Nations small arms treaty.

The 53-46 vote narrowly passed a measure that will stop the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade treaty, thus placing our country and its Constitution under the control of an international organization that has often shown clear bias against us.

The statement of purpose of the bill read: “To uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade treaty.”

I can’t imagine why a senator from the state of Maine would be willing to give any of our constitutional rights to the United Nations.

F.R. Heyner

retired colonel, U.S. Air Force Reserve

Old Orchard Beach

Don’t call Cutler the ‘spoiler’ in 2010 race

Again and again, Eliot Cutler is blamed as the spoiler who allowed Paul LePage to win the governor’s race in 2010.

Could the politicians, party loyalists and the continuous stream of letter writers to the Press Herald please explain why the second-place candidate in a three-way race — where the third-place candidate (Democrat Libby Mitchell) garnered only 19 percent of the vote, compared to LePage’s 38.2 and Cutler’s 36.5 — was the “spoiler”?!

It seems very clear that the Democratic Party was the spoiler, not the independent, Cutler.

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